Leave China, Apple It's Hard To Increase IPhone Production In India

JAKARTA - After diverting its production from China regarding COVID-19 restrictions, Apple is now also facing tough challenges when it wants to increase its production in India.

Citing people familiar with the iPhone maker's operations and telling the Financial Times, a casing factory in southern India run by the conglomerate Tata Group, only has about half the components of the production line that are in good enough condition to be delivered to Apple's supplier, Foxconn.

However, this 50 percent result did not meet Apple's target of not wanting component recordings to be recorded on its iPhone.

In fact, the company's expansion process in India is very slow, partly due to challenges in logistics, tariffs and infrastructure.

Apple has been betting heavily on India since starting assembly of the iPhone in the country in 2017 via Wistron Corp and then Foxconn, in line with the Indian government's push to expand its local manufacturing business.

Last month, India's Minister of Trade and Industry, plan Piyush Goyal said the Cupertino, US-based giant wants his country to account for up to 25 percent of its current production of around 5 to 7 percent.

So far, the iPhone has been assembled in India by at least three global suppliers of Apple, such as Foxconn as well as Pegatron in Tamil Nadu and Wistron near the state of Karnataka.

Apple itself is no longer dependent on China, where it has shifted production from the country following strict COVID-19 restrictions.

This caused damage to supply chains across the industry and as trade and geopolitical tensions between Beijing and Washington escalated.